


Spectres

by Lynds



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (mild), Alternate Universe - Magic, BAMF Loki (Marvel), BAMF Peter Parker, BAMF Tony Stark, Body Horror, Enemies to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Loki's Kids, M/M, Protective Tony Stark, as creepy as I can manage it, which is probably not very
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2020-02-23 21:17:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18710131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lynds/pseuds/Lynds
Summary: Tony is one of the most talented and inventive Monks around, which is why he's been called in to deal with the Spectre Loki. But Loki's asking some strange questions about disappearing children, and as much as Tony finds him fascinating, it's getting a bit creepy.And then Tony's apprentice, Peter, goes missing.In which half the cast is made of shapeshifting slightly Miyazaki-aesthetic Spectres, and the other half are human Monks who have to use spells or potions to level the playing field.





	1. Monk

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SalamanderInk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SalamanderInk/gifts).



> SalamanderInk prompted me to write this probably over a YEAR ago, and I only just managed to write it during Camp NaNo last month! I hope you like it! It's all written out, and I'll be posting every week so I can do some more edits as I go through!

Tony closed his eyes and felt the energy of the air around him. His robes flared as he turned, eyes opening, zeroing into the shimmer of air, hurling a spell at the Spectre with practiced accuracy. An unearthly shriek rent the air and Tony smirked. 

Loki’s power coalesced into a tall, thin man-like creature, thousands of raven-black feathers appearing out of nothing and flying towards the central form. Loki stood up straight, flicking Tony’s lingering spell-dust off his iridescent robes. The soot danced in the air, then floated over to Tony, glimmering on Tony’s forearm. Tony hid his smirk. 

“Are you done, Monk?” 

Loki’s voice was low and rough, and Tony shifted, trying to play it off as impatience. “I don’t know, Spectre, are you done terrorising the city?” Wouldn’t do any good for anyone to notice that their contracted Monk found that voice, that Spectre in particular, almost irresistible. 

And perhaps that was the lot of Monks in general. They craved the power of a Spectre, some surely coveted it to the point of resentment and jealousy, and yet their bodies couldn’t cope with the magic a Spectre was made of. They had to create their own powers with spells, powders and ritual. And Tony was the most creative of the lot. He had no jealousy for the Spectres, though. He was drawn to them, of course - all Monks were, if they admitted it. But he found them fascinating, incredible… beautiful.

Loki flicked his hair back, a shimmer of feathers that ran the entire length of his body to the ground. The bone skull over the upper part of his face couldn’t hide the intensity of those gem-green eyes, the strength of his jaw. It didn’t do anything to hide the crackle in the air at Loki’s powers, the whispers in the very fabric of reality that followed Loki like a cloak, adoring and raw and so far over the edge of reality that it made even Tony’s experienced skin pop goosebumps.

Loki laughed, a crackling of ice, a hiss of the wind through the pines. “I do not terrorise, Monk Stark. I search, I seek.”

Tony made a show of looking around at the deserted street, towers of steel and brick with deep gouges in their side as if made by centuries of erosion, all caused by Loki’s powers, like giant claws scratching and turning concrete to sand. “Yeah, you need to choose different methods,” he said. “Your bedroom must be a mess when you lose your glasses.”

Loki hissed with laughter again. It made Tony’s lips twitch up as well, until he turned back, and Loki was gone. The hairs stood up on the back of his neck as he spun in place, tracing a wary sigil in the air, ready to hurl. 

“What becomes of the children?” Loki whispered in his ear, and Tony spun, his heart pounding, his hair standing on end. The spell he released battered harmlessly into the wall, causing another window to shatter, but Loki simply laughed, a sound that turned to thousands of ravens roaring, whirling around him as they became corporeal. Tony raised his hands to cover his head, all his many years of training deserting him in the centre of the storm of battering black wings.

***

“Well, that was a fucking mess, wasn’t it?” Fury hissed, throwing a file down on the table in front of Tony.

Tony poked at the pictures that spilled out of the file, picking one of two up and smirking, like he was reminiscing over holiday snaps. 

“You think this is funny?” Fury said, rounding on him. His sleek skin rippled in the sunlight filtering through the windows at the top of SHIELD headquarters. Fury hissed again, his forked tongue flickering as his coils twisted, agitated. 

“Ah, c’mon, he didn’t hurt anyone,” Tony said, chucking the pictures back any old how. Fury narrowed his eye at him, and Tony had to look down, pretending that his amulet held something of interest for him. He would never get over the fact that the Spectral head of SHIELD was basically a one-eyed snake. The true tragedy of the situation was that there was nobody around for Tony to make his hilarious observation to.

Fury moved back to his desk, holding out one long-clawed hand to make a beckoning gesture. The file closed itself up and flew straight to him. “Millions of dollars of property damage, for the second time in a week. Loki’s so-called _mischief_ is intensifying. How long before mischief becomes malevolence?” 

Fury leaned over his desk, the aura behind him darkening. Tony just cocked his head. It would take more than a little aura manipulation to scare him. Fury didn’t seem to notice Tony’s nonchalance, which was less than gratifying. “And the contractor we hired has been nothing more than a glorified flirt. In fact, the incidents with Loki are lasting _longer_ since you arrived. More time for damage to be done. Am I going to have to call my team off their task to assist you?”

Tony crinkled up his nose. “Now, Nicky, you know that’s not going to work. I’m just not a team player, right?” He pushed himself to his feet and stretched obnoxiously. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some research to do on Norwegian Spectres and herbs specific to their banishment. Sssssssee you later.” He winked, turned on the spot, and reached out to the amulet in his penthouse that matched the one on his neck.


	2. What Becomes Of The Children?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki is creepy AF. And Peter is missing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you like this chapter! I'll be honest, there are no rules in my head for this universe, it was literally THE MOST fun thing to write because I was just following the aesthetic and going 'Howl's Moving Castle style potions? Hell yeah! Argumentative silver? Absolutely!' Also Loki's creepy phrase might have been the fever dream that turned this from a fun one-shot into... whatever the hell this actually is...
> 
> I'm very fond of this insanity tbh! I hope you enjoy!

The life of a Monk was occluded in clouds of misinformation and superstition. What they did seemed so much easier than what a Spectre did, so much less dramatic and interesting looking. They couldn’t split themselves into thousands of ravens, like Loki could, for example, or slip into and out of reality like Steve Rogers, the famous Shifter. They were entirely human, their powers concentrated in powders, amulets and very specific motions - all tools to get close to the things a Spectre could do with a thought.

And yet they held their own against Spectres, thought Tony, smiling in satisfaction as he ground Svalbard poppy into a fine paste. A careful motion of his hand drew the moisture from the cells, holding it in a hovering ball of water which he siphoned into a vial. He mixed the powder with the marrowbone of an elk and, after careful consideration, the meltwater of a single snowflake.

He poured the entire mixture into a fine leather pouch, and tied it carefully, clipping it to the inside of his coat, then checked the scrying bowl, frowning. Peter hadn’t replied to his messages yet. That was unlike him. His apprentice was so eager - often too eager, he’d found him asleep standing up way too many times. Tony grinned at the memories. The boy was so much like him. Poor kid.

He wondered idly what Peter would have done to solve the problems Loki posed, in all his incredible power. Monk work was a bundle of contradictions that infuriated most people. Rules such as _Like Calls To Like_ lived in balanced symbiosis with _Opposites Attract_. Tony had come to realise that the best thing to do was to make it up and then find some way to justify it after the fact. When he’d mentioned it to Master Yinsen, the old man had smiled, winked, and tapped his nose.

Tony couldn’t wait for Peter to realise the exact same thing. 

The smudge of spell-soot from his previous altercation with Loki started to glow on his forearm, and Tony smirked. He pressed his hand to it, gathering as much of it as he could on his palm, then blew it into a circle in front of him. The dust whirled and eddied, gathering the folds of space and time, calling out to the one it was created to track, tunnelling into reality. Tony simply stepped into the hole, and out the other side into yet more chaos.

He frowned around him. They were in an office building, empty for the night. It was unlike Loki to choose somewhere without an audience.

A skittering, rustling noise behind him made Tony spin on the balls of his feet, a spell at the ready. 

Another noise to the side. Footsteps above him, on the ceiling, and Tony, his nerves prickling, glanced around the room, alert to every motion.

A flash of blue, and he turned, gaping. A child, maybe four years old, ran across the room from nowhere, and disappeared into nowhere. 

Tony rushed to where she had been, blowing a revealing powder over the path she had taken. The telltale glitter of a Spectre lit up her footsteps.

A pattering, a slithering, a clicking, and Tony, crouched low, heart pounding, turned from one to the other.

“Enough!” he said sharply, breathing harder than he would like to admit. He brought fire to his hand and cast it around the room, where it turned to smoke in an instant. “Loki! I know you’re there,” he yelled.

The smoke roiled, chasing its own tail, rushing this way and that, spiralling and curling around Tony, until there was a breathless sound, and a fall. 

Tony turned, his red robes flaring out behind him, and there was Loki, snarling, one knee on the floor. “You put my children in danger,” he growled.

Tony rolled his eyes. “They weren’t in danger. The smoke just makes Spectres visible.” He glanced from side to side. “Well, it usually does.”

Loki rose smoothly. “I sent them away.” He cocked his head sharply on one side, those rapid, boneless motions that made Tony’s adrenaline spike. “What becomes of the children?”

Tony frowned. This again. “I don’t know, they’re your children.”

Loki clasped his hands behind his back and started to circle Tony, observing him. “But what becomes of _your_ children?”

“I don’t have children,” Tony said.

“I see your children,” Loki said, almost singing, his voice dreamlike, distant. “I see them in streets, in the garbage, I see your children cast out. And then…” he stopped and in a heartbeat he was behind Tony, his long fingers closing on his shoulder one by one. “And then, I see them not.”

Tony’s breath shuddered, his heart beating so hard he thought it might escape from his chest, burst out of him like Loki’s ravens. He was not fast enough for this. Should Loki decide to do anything now, he would not survive. He closed his eyes and thought of Peter.

Loki’s face was close enough that Tony should have felt the bone mask. Instead he felt soft, smooth skin against his cheek. “What becomes of the children, Tony Stark?” whispered Loki.

And then he was gone. The air cleared of smoke and aura, reality snapping around him as Loki made it elastic to his will, and Tony gasped so hard he nearly cried out.

***

Tony’s hands were still shaking when he got back to his penthouse, and he scraped his fingers through his hair, pulling at the strands until they ached down to his skull. He opened the cupboard, searching for the coffee Pepper had formulated for him, her own spells and powders infused into the grounds to calm him down. “You’ll have the placebo effect of drinking coffee, but it won’t make you jittery from the caffeine.”

Tony hadn’t ever told her that he liked the jitteriness. He liked the feeling of his skin almost crawling away from him. It made him feel somehow not real. Like he imagined a Spectre feeling when it broke into thousands of spirits, expanding to fill the world. Today, however, he thought her special decaf was a medicinal necessity.

He caught the flashing light out of the corner of his eye, and startled back, his hand out and glowing with a defensive spell. He sagged when he saw it was only his old answer machine. Probably some journalist who’d got hold of his personal number from somewhere, he really needed to change it again. But it was such a pain getting it out to all the regular humans who actually needed it - Tony always forgot who could and couldn’t use scrying bowls and amulets.

He pressed the play button and turned back to his coffee, ready to ignore whatever the person had to say. “Uh, hey, Mr Stark? It’s May Parker here.”

Tony dropped the spoon back into the pot and raced to the machine, hand hovering over it as if he could summon her back just by picking up the receiver. “I got this number from Pete’s room.” Her voice crackled for a moment, as if she had just sighed. “I, uh… you haven’t seen him, have you? He’s not home, and… I know he’s a teenager and it’s only five, but he was away all weekend… I just figured he was over at yours and got caught up with training but… he’s a good kid, Mr Stark, he wouldn’t leave me worrying this long. And if… if you’ve distracted him for a whole weekend and he’s missed school, I swear to God, Monk or not I will kick your ass, OK?” She cleared her throat. “Uh. Yeah. Just… call me back when you get this. Bye.”

Tony’s heart, still on high alert from his encounter with Loki, picked up its pace. He considered ripping through space to appear in her living room there and then, but she was a regular human, the shock would probably kill her. 

Or more likely she’d hit him with a baseball bat.

He picked up the phone and dialed with shaking hands. “May? Hey, it’s Tony Stark, I just got your message.” He tugged his hair again and took a deep breath. “When did you last see Pete?”

“Friday morning, before school,” she said, her voice starting to rise as the worry that had obviously been simmering there kicked into another gear. “What are you saying, Mr Stark?”

Tony pinched the bridge of his nose. “He wasn’t here this weekend. We didn’t have anything scheduled, I was out dealing with… never mind - have you called his friends?”

“Yeah, of course I have, Ned says he was in lessons that morning, but he didn’t see him after third period - I didn’t worry because they don’t do every class together, and I just thought… he’d be with you. That’s where he always is.”

“OK. OK, look, don’t… Pete’s a clever kid, he’ll be…” Tony blew out a sharp breath, because that was not fucking helping. Nothing was helping. He wanted to race out of the front door and run the streets screaming Peter’s name until the boy poked his tousled head out of some side street, looking confused. “I’ll go… I’ll see if I can find him, OK?”

“Shit,” May said, her voice muffled, as if she was pressing her fingers against her lips, trying to keep the lid on the panic. “Shit, I need to… I can’t stay here, where can I look?”

“Just stay--”

“Don’t you fucking tell me to stay put, Tony Stark,” she snapped. “What can I do to help find my boy?”

“Uh, fuck,” he muttered. “OK, OK, OK, this is… Yes! I’ll make a tracker, can you get me something he’s worn recently? I mean, something he’s worn a lot, like, I dunno, a hoodie he’s worn several days in a row.”

“He was wearing his favourite that morning - how about his pyjama shirt?”

“Yeah, perfect, I’ll be over in a minute, I’ll make up a tracker. Oh - it won’t survive the experience, you think he’ll mind?”

“If he does mind, he can damn well make a better effort to stay in touch,” she said sharply.

Tony nodded and hung up without completing the rest of the thought. Because if Peter was in real trouble, the destruction of his favourite shirt would be well worth the risk. He gathered up glass bottles with whatever his hands led him to, and after a pause, a tarnished silver chain that dangled off the cupboard door. He’d picked it up off the ground one day and kept it, knowing it would be important one day. Then with one last deep, calming breath that didn’t work, he sliced through space and time and appeared in the Parker’s living room.

May was pacing up and down the kitchenette and jumped violently when he arrived. She recovered quickly and held out the shirt. Tony all but snatched it and set it alight in his hands. May shrieked, but then rushed over, watching his every move. Tony pulled the ashes and smoke together into a transparent ball that hovered over May’s kitchen counter. He materialised his mortar and pestle, a huge, solid beast of a thing, and threw in almost a whole vial full of moldavite shards, pounding them to dust with the pestle. A whispered word set it glowing, an acid green, almost physical presence of light blasting outwards, making May’s long hair lift and twine as she gazed down, fascinated.

He fingered through the herbs in his pocket, frowning, then looked up. “Are those cigarettes?”

“Yeah,” she said, slightly defensive. “I’m cutting down.”

“Can I have one?”

She narrowed her eyes, but handed him a cigarette and the lighter. He brushed that back and flicked an obsidian knife out of his pocket, slashing through the paper so that the tobacco fluttered into the mortar. It ignited almost instantly, and he pounded them together, the flame rising almost up to his wrist. He drew a sigil in the air, and the orb of pyjama shirt ash morphed into a teardrop shape, the pointed end pulled thinner and thinner, until it touched the mixture. Instantly it was sucked down into the mortar, and Tony leaped back as the light roared, flared red, streaks of blue crackling through it, a hissing, chittering noise and lightning sparks fluttering inside the cloud that gathered above the kitchen counter.

“Holy shit,” breathed May, backed up against the dining table. Tony ignored her and forced his way forwards, pulling the silver chain out of the inside pocket of his jacket. He wrapped one end around his fist, and, gritting his teeth, shoved the dangling end into the great cloud.

The chain immediately tightened so hard around his hand he felt his fingers cut off from the blood supply. He winced and turned his face away from the bright light and roaring storm, then forced himself to look back at it. He narrowed his eyes against the whipping, tearing, screaming chain trying to escape, and gave it a little shake. “Peter Parker,” he barked, sending all his will into the chain, into the mixture, smacking the backs of their metaphorical heads and demanding they bloody well work together to find his apprentice.

The cloud roared for a moment. The chain thrashed in his hand. He glared at both of them. _Do not fuck with me on this_ , he assured them. _I’ll work with you on most things, but I have not got time for your shit right now._

The cloud grumbled one last time. The chain quit its curling and whipping and lay perfectly straight, pulling downwards so hard that Tony’s biceps strained against it, stopping it from actually connecting with the mixture. “Peter Parker,” he said once more.

The cloud dived down the chain. The powder dived up the chain. The moment they met in the centre, there was an explosive silence that sucked at Tony’s ear drums. He closed his eyes with the percussive anti-shock of it, and when he blinked them open again, the room was filled with the finest suspended glitter. May stared around at it in wonder. Tony grunted out a spell, and the glitter siphoned itself slowly into his mortar once more.

“Woah,” May whispered, leaning over to look at the pile of powder. Then her eyes widened. “You’re bleeding!”

“Yeah, bloody chain,” he grumbled. “Fought me every step of the way. Silver always thinks it knows best.”

“Do you want a bandage or something?” she asked.

“You got one?”

She blinked. “Honestly, I was expecting you to say no, you’d heal it yourself.”

“My healing magic sucks,” he admitted. “So yeah, if you don’t mind. I don’t want it to mix too much with the powder.”

“Will that affect the magic?” she asked, pulling a first aid kit down off the top shelf.

“Nah, just stings like hell,” he grinned.


	3. Search and Summoning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony is really starting to panic about Peter's disappearance

Tony materialised downtown, the chain looped around his wrist tugging him first one way and then the next. “What are you playing at?” he grumbled at it. It fluttered towards the north, then hung limp, as if confused. Tony swallowed hard and told himself firmly that it was just settling in, that Peter was doing some magic of his own which was interfering with the signal. Peter was fine. He had to be.

He walked down the abandoned street of the industrial district, undoing the chain and letting it dangle between his fingers, swinging like a metronome. His robes fluttered in the night breeze and a vast Spectre drifted silently along with the clouds behind the factory chimneys, great paddles propelling it along its length. The sounds of the living city were muted by distance.

Metal fell to the ground down an alley and Tony leaped into a defensive stance, hands outstretched, palms out as a sigil glowed on each. The air around him fell still, listening along with him, and he murmured a spell to see better in the dark. 

At that moment, a beam of light swung towards him and he yelped, covering his eyes as they watered. 

“Tony?” called a familiar voice.

“Shit,” whimpered Tony, casting the counterspell and standing, wiping tears away and blinking the afterimage of shockingly bright light. “Rogers? That you?”

A huff echoed off the walls. “Stand down, Natasha, it’s Tony.” As Tony’s eyes returned to normal, he saw a vast shape extract itself from the wall of the nearest factory, shrinking down, changing until it took the form of a slight human, maybe half a head shorter than Tony, with messy blonde hair. “What are you doing here, Tony?”

Tony frowned. He hated being called Stark, but Steve Rogers had started calling him Tony almost immediately, without even trying to be friendly along with it. “Tracking spell,” he said shortly, holding up the chain.

“You’re tracking Loki here?” asked Romanov. She, too, was holding herself in her most human form, but Tony could still see the diffuse edges of her body, her Spectral spirit fighting the constriction and eager to spread out.

“Not Loki,” he said. “I’m looking for my apprentice, Peter Parker, his aunt hasn’t seen him since Friday morning.” He hesitated. “He’s about yea high, brown hair, ridiculously enthusiastic about--”

“Stark, we don’t have time for this,” Romanov interrupted. “And you’re supposed to be focusing on Loki, we need him neutralised before…” She glanced at Rogers. “Just get rid of him, we don’t need Fury calling us in on a job you can’t do.”

Tony’s jaw clicked shut. “Right. Well, I’ll be on my way, then, huh? Not like a missing kid is…”

He trailed off. Missing children. His heart started beating faster, thinking back to the child running through the office building, to Loki whispering in his ear _what becomes of the children_. Had it been a threat?

He could feel the adrenaline rising, bubbling through his veins, making his joints fizz with panic. Rogers and Romanov were already turning away, Romanov collapsing into a vast pool of skittering shapes that shot off in every direction with a soft, slightly wet rustling sound, like army ants eating through a corpse. Rogers turned. “I’ll keep an eye out for your apprentice, uh…”

“Peter Parker,” he said automatically, but he couldn’t get his head out of the horror, the what ifs all falling down around his ears. He took a deep breath, barely registering Rogers shifting into a gargoyle-like creature that swarmed up the side of the building with a grinding noise.

***

The summoning circle was set up. Every particle of tracking dust from his earlier encounter with Loki had been siphoned off Tony’s cloak sleeve and rested in a neat pile in the centre of his palm. With a gesture Tony lit the candles at each compass point, took a deep breath and blew the dust out into the circle.

At once the circle was filled with a column of brightly coloured, thrashing, battering, shrieking Spectre. Breathing fast, Tony held up both arms wide, pouring all his sweat and strength into holding the barriers still and blocking up all the escape holes. The candles guttered wildly, the flames spinning and rising as if pulled by a tornado, and Tony gritted his teeth, crying out as the wild Spectre beat against his boundaries.

The fight was gone as quickly as it started, and Tony stumbled forwards as Loki stopped fighting, instead gathering his spirit into his human form and pacing the bounds of the summoning circle, fury radiating off him in tangible waves. “You dare to summon me? To entrap _me_ in such bounds? What is the meaning of this, Monk?”

“What becomes of the children?” Tony spat, standing up straight and catching his breath. “What becomes of _my children?_ What does that mean, Loki?”

Loki cocked his head on one side, then the other, his bone mask with its long curved beak twitching. “You said you had no children,” he taunted.

“Fuck you!” Tony screamed. “Fuck you! What have you done with Peter? Where’s my apprentice? Where’s my kid?”

Loki swarmed forwards, green eyes blazing with rage. The room darkened behind him, and a tiny, rational part of Tony told him that shouldn’t be possible, all of Loki’s powers were trapped with him in that summoning circle, he shouldn’t be able to manipulate his aura that far out. “How dare you?” Loki roared, his voice almost entirely subsonic, rumbling through the building. “How dare you suggest I harm them? You, who denied their presence, who cares not for those discarded, how dare you?”

Tony’s strength flowed out of his bones and into the floor, leaving him on his knees. “I don’t know what to do,” he howled. “I don’t know where he is, I can’t find him, I’m failing him.” He wanted to scream, wanted to wail until his whole spirit poured out of his mouth, leaving him empty of all this fear and worry. “I’m so afraid,” he whispered. “He’s out there somewhere and he’s alone and what if he’s hurt? I can’t find him and I’m so afraid for him.”

Hot tears fell as he bent his body over, shaking with sobs, wrapping his arms around him to try and hold the fragments of himself together. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe, this was his last port of call and it was wrong. He’d failed, and Pete was out there paying for his Master’s ineptitude, and he didn’t know what to do.

Cold fingers tucked themselves under his arms, tugging him upwards effortlessly. He was gathered into the cradle of strong arms, curled into a ball of soft blackness, and the world disappeared.


	4. Hope from an Unfamiliar Quarter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki and Tony team up to find Peter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK guys I'm actually damn proud of this chapter! So it is my great pleasure to bring it to you early! I hope you enjoy it, and thank you ENDLESSLY for all the lovely comments!!! I plan to answer every one, but I'm so behind, I'm sorry! I'm also not likely to catch up this weekend because I'm off camping (hence the early upload lol!) but I PROMISE I will reply as soon as I can! ILY!!

Tony woke with a gasp, all of his panic from the day before returning in a rush. The fur blankets, the thick feather pillows and the vast, cavelike room did nothing to help.

“Loki, he wakes!” cried a young child’s voice, and Tony’s head snapped towards it so fast he cricked his neck. The little girl from the office block bounced up and down on his bed clapping her hands. She was very clearly a Spectre as well, patchy blue skin with great ragged holes showing her skeleton beneath. As he watched the holes shifted like clouds across the sky, moving over her face even as she spoke. 

“Move, Fenrir, move up,” she said, shoving at a bulge in the fur blanket. The bulge grumbled, and then the whole fur blanket contracted and tensed, a mouth, lined with razor sharp teeth, opened near Tony’s hand and yawned. Tony whipped his fingers away rather than risk losing them, and a pair of yellowish eyes appeared in the blanket, blinking up at him.

“I’m Hela,” said the little girl, crouching above Fenrir’s head and peering at Tony. “This is Fenrir, and that one’s Jormungandr.” She pointed above Tony’s head without looking, and Tony looked up to see a great twisting shape coiled in the rafters. Jormungandr’s head dropped lower and lower, peering at him as well.

“Um. Hi,” Tony said, waving. Hela squeaked and clapped her hands again, and Tony couldn’t help smiling.

“You have met my children,” said a deep, purring voice, and Tony looked up to see Loki walk in. And then he blinked again, because Loki wasn’t wearing his bone mask.

If he’d seen Loki without the bone mask before, he probably would have been even more keen to extend their fights. He’d found him fascinating before, brilliantly powerful and delightfully sharp-tongued. But without his bone mask hiding his face, he was… beautiful.

His pale skin almost glowed against the green-black irridescent feathers that formed his hair, and then spread out down his back like a great cloak. His high, sharp cheekbones framed a thin-lipped smile and surprising dimples as he turned to greet his children. And those eyes - Tony had seen them before through the mask, but now, uninhibited, they were utterly captivating, a magic all of their own.

Loki folded himself on Tony’s bedside, close enough that his feathers brushed the back of Tony’s hand, and he should have been terrified, a Monk trapped in a Spectre’s lair, but the vast power behind those eyes was banked, and all he could see was patient compassion. 

“What becomes of the children?” Loki asked. The children echoed him in whispers, peering up at Tony.

Tony took a sharp breath. “I don’t… I don’t _know_. I told you. I didn’t even know… and then Pete disappeared and I remembered you saying…” He buried his face in his hands. “I’m sorry I blamed you, but--”

“You care,” Loki said, and the children echoed him once more, _you care, you care, you care_ shushing into the eaves of the vast room.

“I need to go,” Tony said, pushing Fenrir gently away from his legs, but Loki stopped him, one long-fingered hand in the centre of his chest. Tony looked up, surprised and apprehensive.

“My children may take the form of your children,” he said, standing and walking around the bed. As he spoke, Fenrir and Jormungandr shrank and coalesced their great size into that of small humans, both a little older than Hela but still young and rather feral looking. Loki smiled at them, brushing his fingers through Fenrir’s hair, and the boy’s skin fluttered like fur fluffing out. “They play with your children, in the streets.”

“In the garbage,” said Hela, her big eyes fixed on Tony.

“In the alleys,” said Fenrir, his voice a surprisingly deep growl.

“Under the bridges,” said Jormungandr softly.

“We see them,” they said together.

“We stop it when you hurt them,” said Hela, her eyes narrowing.

“I don’t--”

“She means adults,” Loki explained. “To us, you might well all be one. You are small, all the same.” He cocked his head on one side. “Most of you,” he added slowly. “You… you are Tony Stark.”

“Uh… I am.”

“You are… interesting.” Loki’s lip twitched. “A challenge.”

“You still managed to break through my circle pretty easily,” Tony grumbled. 

Loki’s eyes softened. “Because your heart broke first,” he said.

Tony looked down at his hands and bit his lip.

“What becomes of the children?” Jormungandr asked, crawling up the bed to sit next to Tony.

“What becomes of the children?” asked Hela, putting one small hand on his knee.

Tony looked up, despairing. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m… I’m so sorry, I don’t know.”

“They have been disappearing,” said Loki. “Not like always, one by one at the hand of cruelty and hate, but many, all of a sudden. My children miss them when no others will. What becomes of them, Tony Stark?”

“I don’t.. _I don’t know!_ I can’t even find Peter, and I know him and I’m a Monk - I’m a _good_ Monk, I’m the best in the business and _I can’t find him_.” He held up the chain on his wrist, shaking it at Loki. “It’s not working. It says he’s north, then south, then east… then it just starts spinning around in circles, and what if…” He swallowed, pressing his hand to his mouth, unable to continue. “I’ve failed him,” he said in a whisper.

“Not yet,” said Loki, his green eyes holding steady. “Not until we have sought him with you.”

“Then we will find the others? Find them, find them. Yes. Friends. We’re going hunting?” Fenrir asked, his legs crossed, looking up to Loki eagerly. 

“Let us hope,” said Loki with a fond smile.

***

Tony had woken up in a cave surrounded by Spectres before. That had not ended nearly so well for anyone involved. It helped that this cave was vast where that one had been claustrophobic, cool where that one had been sweat and desert hot. It helped that these Spectres seemed to understand that humans needed food and water and “Oh my god, is that coffee?”

Loki cocked his head on one side to peer at the drink. “It is what you drink, no?”

Tony looked up from breathing in the heavenly aroma. “How do you know what I drink? Did I turn up to one of our fights with a take-out cup or something? That sounds like me.”

Loki smiled, a slow curling of his lips, though he turned his face away as he spoke. “I find you interesting.”

Tony blinked. “You…”

“I learn about that which interests me,” he said. And did Spectres _blush?_ Because Tony wasn’t sure if there was a dusting of pink on his high cheekbones as he turned with a rustle of feathers, flicking them back out of his face as he walked back to his children. Tony drank his coffee to hide his smile.

While the three children stared at him in fascination as he drank, Loki held out a hand, black talons almost curved right around to brush at his palms. “The chain?”

Tony frowned. “But you’re a Spectre, I’m a Monk… our magic isn’t compatible.”

Loki crinkled his nose. “I am not interested in your rules.”

“I’m pretty sure those are Spectre rules,” Tony snorted. “You know, all that ‘Monk magic is lesser’?”

Loki’s feathers fluffed up on his shoulders. “I am not interested in our rules, either,” he said with a smirk. 

Tony grinned back and held out the chain, letting it pool in Loki’s palm. It still flickered and twitched weakly, even as Loki curled his talons over it, peering close. He stuck a long tongue out and licked it, and Tony winced. “Uh, I bled on that, just saying.”

“I know,” said Loki, glancing up at him. “I taste you.”

Tony cleared his throat and focused on the matter at hand. “So can you do anything? Like, boost the power?”

“The power is not the problem, Monk Tony,” said Loki, running the chain along his fingers. “The signal it receives is… complex, scattered. The magic is fragmented. Your chain tells the truth, the truth is just… contradictory.”

“Well… what does that mean?” Tony said, throwing up his hands. “How are we going to find him?”

Loki took a deep breath that seem to dig itself into the earth. “I will need your help.”

Tony’s heart flipped. “You’ve got an idea? Yeah, anything.”

Loki paused. “You should not say such things so easily. Not to a Spectre, not to any.”

“For Pete, it’s worth it,” he said firmly. “What do you need?”

“An anchor,” said Loki. And then he grabbed Tony by the collar and every atom seemed to split apart before recombining at the top of a tall building. 

Tony yelled wordlessly and stumbled back, falling onto his ass. “What the… what the fuck was that? Did I just… Holy…”

Loki blinked, his head pulled back. “Have I insulted you?”

“Insulted?” Tony laughed hysterically and pushed himself to his feet. “No, I just… holy shit! That’s how you teleport? You just… atomise yourself? Holy fuck.”

Loki blinked at him, and there was something like uncertainty in his green eyes. Tony took a deep breath and laughed again. “That was so fucking cool.”

Loki’s face split with a sharp toothed grin. “I am pleased you liked it.”

“Hell yeah!” Tony took a deep breath to calm his pounding heart. “OK. What do you need me to do? How do I act as an anchor for you? What are you going to do?”

Loki held up the chain. It skittered and flicked, twitching here and there on his talon. “I shall follow the chain.”

“Yeah, but… which way?”

“Every way, of course,” Loki said, raising an eyebrow. “But…” He glanced at the chain, a shadow passing over his eyes just briefly. “It may travel far, and I will be stretched thin. I need a point to return to.” His eyes held Tony’s, and Tony hardly dared breathe. He just nodded.

Loki set his jaw and stepped forwards into Tony’s space. “I need you to hold me,” he said, his voice a soft brush of feathers. He took another step, taking both of Tony’s wrists and slowly, giving him every chance to back out, wrapped them around his chest. 

Tony forced himself to breathe, shuffling closer, burying his fingers in soft, shiny feathers, turning his face so that his cheek and jaw pressed against Loki’s collarbone. He could hear a heavy rhythm within Loki’s chest, like and unlike a human heartbeat, so heavy and hollow it seemed to vibrate down to Tony’s very soul, drawing him into the music of it. “That OK?” he asked softly.

“Yes,” Loki rumbled. “Do not let go.”

The world seemed to hang in a held breath, and then splinter into a howling wind and fragments of soul. Tony’s arms tightened automatically, but even so, horrified, he felt Loki’s body drift away from him. He clenched his biceps, wrapping his arms tight and clinging onto his own elbows as feathers and glass and the scream of the wind and _oh God_ , Loki’s soul, whirled around him. 

Loki’s arms raised along either side of him, becoming wings, and his neck tipped back so Tony could no longer feel his chin on the top of his head. He dared to open his eyes, and almost immediately closed them again. The chain Tony had given him was stretched, defying all the laws of materials and space, tight between Loki’s hands. Or where Loki’s hands _should_ have been, because, when he peeked out again, they weren’t there. The ends of his arms seemed to fuse into the air around them, and trying to see where he began and ended made his head ache. Loki seemed to be being stretched, feathers elongating and moving towards that void where his hands had once been. Tony clung to him, gripping tight, even as his fingers seemed to want to slip from his elbows. He had no idea what would happen if he let Loki go, but instinctively he knew it would be the end of something.

All of a sudden the howling wind died, and Loki went limp in his arms. Tony staggered and just caught himself before falling, shifting to cup Loki’s head as he lowered him to the ground. His hands were visible once more, but his arms seemed stretched, unnaturally long and elastic. “Loki. Loki, hey! Lokes, stay with me here.”

He didn’t know if Spectres needed to breathe. As a Monk, how could he not know that? He knew the ones who spent more time with humans behaved more like humans, and that meant mimicking their natural, unconscious movements like breathing and shifting on the spot. But did they need to? Because if they did, they had a problem. Loki’s chest lay still, no breath ticking his hand as he held his fingers over his lips.

Tony rubbed Loki’s chest, patted his cheeks, called his name. He kept his panic banked, for now, but it was biting at his heels, dying to get its teeth into him. 

“Hela!” he yelled. The little girl appeared, dropping to her knees beside Loki. Tony felt a flare of guilt - he didn’t want to scare her, but she would almost certainly know more than him. “I don’t know what to do,” he admitted, the panic seeping into his voice.

Without a word, she bent over Loki’s head. The others appeared, and then just as quickly the three of them disintegrated, a whirling maelstrom of Spectral spirit centred over his chest. Tony sat back, his fingers twitching with the need to _do_ something, but not wanting to get in the way.

And then, without warning, Loki sat up with a gasp, his eyes almost completely rolled back in his head. Tony surged forward to support him as he draped himself over Tony’s arm, coughing. Feathers fluttered off him, oil black on the concrete floor. Tony rocked Loki, murmuring meaningless things and brushing his fingers through the thin, long feathers that covered his head.

Loki held out the chain in one trembling hand. Tony took it, ready to shove it into a pocket and carry Loki downstairs to check him over, but the chain twitched in his hand. He gripped it tightly, and it sprang out, rigid and almost horizontal, pointing south west so steadily it almost hummed with vibrations. 

“It is done,” Loki croaked, one hooded eye looking up to Tony. “Go to him.”

“Wait, no, what about—“

“My children will take me inside. Come back with him. He will need… help.”

Tony hesitated, his heart pulled in two. Then he bent down to press a kiss to Loki’s temple. “I’ll be back,” he said firmly, holding Loki’s wide-eyed gaze. “You sure you’ll be OK?”

Loki blinked at him, then a slow smile grew across his face, crinkling small lines into the corner of his eyes. “I will be fine,” he said. “Now, go.”


	5. Peter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The return of Peter Parker

Tony looked down at his hand again as he appeared in the docks, the chain leading him through one of his portals as rigid as a dowsing stick. He stumbled in his haste, slipping over the pallets and cardboard boxes slick with rain that littered the alley. “Pete!” he yelled. “Peter, can you hear me?”

“Tony?” 

The weak voice sent fire through his veins and he rushed forward, shoving the chain into his pocket and lifting scrap out of his away with muttered spells and gestures. Peter was lying on his face, turning his head sluggishly, squinting up at Tony, and he nearly fell to his knees and sobbed right there in relief. “Hey, there, buddy. Don’t try to move, it’s OK, I’m just gonna cast a diagnostic over you, see if anything’s broken.”

“‘M fine, Mr Stark,” Peter slurred, waving a hand. “Just tired, and…”

He trailed off, biting his lip, and Tony narrowed his eyes at him, but had to focus on the spell he was casting. “Nothing broken,” he said on an exhale. “C’mon, hold onto my neck, we’re going somewhere to make sure you’re OK. You need rest.”

“No, Mr Stark, I have to… I have to tell you something,” Peter protested, his head lolling as Tony picked him up. “I have to… there are others.”

“Yeah, I know, kid, we’ll get them too. Just hold still.”

“No, no, you don’t… they did something… I’m not… I’m not…”

“Peter, it’s fine, whatever it is, we’ll sort it out.”

“I’m not human anymore!” he wailed. As Tony froze Peter curled up in his arms, pressing his face close and sobbing. “They did something… I’m… I’m a Spectre. I’m so sorry, Mr Stark.”

“Fuck, Petey.” He dropped to his knees so he could wrap both arms around Peter better as the boy cried into his neck. “God, you don’t need to apologise for something like that, this is not your fault. Why would you think you need to apologise?”

“Because… because I can’t be a Monk any more, all your h-hard work, and I was just a waste of time and--”

“You could never be a waste of time, you hear me?” he said firmly. “And… look, the rules about Monks and Spectres, they might not be as set in stone as we thought, OK? Just don’t worry about something like that! You just focus on getting better. Now, I’m gonna call May, and then I’m gonna take you… somewhere you can get some help.”

***

Peter sat up in bed, staring around at the cavernous room with bright, interested eyes. Tony was so proud of him he could cry. The kid had been through so much already, but he was taking it all in his stride. A Monk apprentice sitting propped up in a Spectre’s bed, a huge wolf-like puppy flopped over his knees, a snake-dragon-thing peering at him with bright eyes, and little Hela, the corpse child, sitting next to him and poking at the scars that webbed all over his torso and made Tony bite his lip to stop from crying out in rage.

Loki walked into the room and lowered himself into the seat next to Tony, wincing as he sat. Tony had an urge to hover, hold out his hands to steady him. He sat on his hands instead, hunching his shoulders up. He thought about the last time he’d seen Loki, the feel of his skin under his lips, smooth, fine feathered, slightly sweaty - and he wanted more. What the hell was he thinking?

He forced his mind away from the impossible fantasy of an incredibly powerful Spectre lowering himself to some middling Monk’s level, and focused instead on Peter. “So… the gang’s all here, kid. What happened?” 

“Is Aunt May OK?” Peter asked instead, elbows on his knees.

“Yeah, she’s fine,” he said. She’d cried on Tony’s shoulders and slapped him a couple of times, and then kissed his cheek better and apologised, and then apologised for kissing him, and generally been a bit of a mess, but Pete didn’t need to know that. “She’s not happy that you’re not in your own bed, but I said you might need some extra help, so…” He gestured at the Spectres.

“Yeah,” Peter breathed, gazing between them, wide-eyed. “Uh, Mr Stark, is that… Loki?”

Loki smiled slowly, one side of his lips quirking up and just open enough to show sharp teeth. Tony rolled his eyes. “Yeah, this is Loki, ignore him, he’s trying to creep you out. He helped find you.” Tony swallowed. “Without him I think I… I wouldn’t have been able to.”

Peter grabbed his wrist. “You would have, Tony,” he said, holding his gaze, and when had this teenager developed such a well of _power_? “I believe in you.”

Tony looked away, trying to come back with a snarky response, unable to get anything past the lump in his throat.

Peter’s hand slipped from him as he sat up. “I noticed you,” he said to Loki. “I tried to talk to you, but… well, you saw me.”

Loki nodded, and Tony’s head snapped towards him. “What?”

“When I sought the child, I found my soul pulled in all directions,” Loki said, with the slightest wince. “That which kept him, kept him in many places, his soul stretched as mine was. As humans should not be, not even Monks.” He regarded Tony with something like sorrow, something like wonder. “But there is something more in Peter, as I see in you, a will like no other I have seen before, and yet now I see two. A will forged and tempered in heat and pain, the strongest steel binding your every atom together. Even in his immense pain, your Peter clung to my presence and drew something from me.”

Peter inhaled sharply. “Oh my God, Mr Loki, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to--”

“You are welcome to it,” Loki said, a small, genuine smile curling his lips. “I would not have it any other way, only… you are changed now.” He glanced at Tony. “I apologise.”

Tony shook his head. “You brought him back,” he said fiercely. “Without you, he wouldn’t have been able to escape, would he?”

Loki tilted his face from side to side. “Perhaps. You two, I believe you will surprise any expectations put upon you. But… he would always have been changed.”

They looked at Peter, who shrugged sadly at Tony. “I think I’m part Spectre now.”

“Is that a thing?” Tony asked.

“Not that I have seen,” Loki admitted. “I know not what this means for Peter.”

Jormungandr lowered himself to Peter’s shoulders and shrank to a more manageable size and whispered into Peter’s ear. Pete held up his hand, frowning slightly, and suddenly a swirling mass of white appeared above his palm, strands of _something_. Peter aimed his hand towards the rafters, and the power reached out, tangling around the beams, and _pulling_ Peter after it with a yelp.

“Peter!” Tony yelled, starting to his feet.

“It’s OK, Mister Stark,” Peter said, his voice a bit shaky. “I’m fine, I’m cool, I’m just… up here. This is fine.”

Hela clapped her hands together. “See what happens if you fall!”

“Or you could not!” Tony snapped.

“Jormungandr?” Loki said, turning to the snake. Jormungandr nodded his head and rose, growing, into the air. He slithered on nothing up to Peter, who slipped off the beam onto his back, the white strands of power returning to wherever they’d come from. Jormungandr carried Peter back to the bed, then curled up with him smugly. 

Peter patted him with a smile. “Thanks, Jor.” The great snake Spectre purred and nuzzled closer to him. “Well,” Peter added, looking between Tony and Loki. “That was…”

“New,” Tony said faintly.

“Freaking awesome,” Pete laughed. Tony rolled his eyes to hide his smile.

***

“I popped out of school on Friday to get some supplies for a spell idea - that’s when they grabbed me,” Peter told them, hands wrapped around a mug of coffee, laced with both Monk and Spectre healing magic. “I was running late on my way back to fifth period, thinking of trying out one of those teleport spells - I know, Mister Stark, I didn’t actually. It was just tempting. I took a short-cut through the alleys instead.”

He took a deep breath and smiled at Fenrir, who insisted on sitting shoulder to shoulder with him, no concern for personal space. “One minute I was running, next I was tangled up in a mess of Spectre magic, tumbled around and, like, just _dropped_ into a basement somewhere. There were men there, soldier-type guys. None of them were Monks, they got this one Spectre to do stuff for them, and then they just… shoved me in this huge room and left me there. I never saw any of them after that. 

“There were other kids there,” he said, staring at the steam pouring off his drink. “There still are. I told them someone was looking for me but they were all street kids, or runaways - they didn’t believe it made any difference to them.” Peter looked up at Tony, his jaw clenched. “I swore I’d go back for them. I have to.”

“We will. Yes, we will. Friends,” said Fenrir.

Peter glared around once more for good measure, then nodded sharply. Then he turned back to Tony, his eyes haunted. “There was a man,” he said. “The only person who ever came into the big room. The kids talked about him all the time when I first arrived, but…” he shuddered. “It didn’t do him justice. He was… monstrous. He wore a mask a bit like yours, Loki, only the bone was across his jaw, and over his nose. He had one normal arm, and one that glowed silver. It flowed and changed like a Spectre, but I think he was human. But his eyes… he looked dead, there was no spark at all. His mind was working, but his soul was… asleep.” 

Loki and Tony exchanged glances. Peter fiddled with the cup. “They were trying to make more like him,” Peter said softly. “They… that’s what they were doing with me. The one-armed man came and grabbed me, dragged me down… all these corridors into a big room with the other humans. They strapped me into this machine and just…” Peter shuddered. “That’s where I was, when Loki found me. Do you think he’s like me?”

“Perhaps,” Loki said slowly. “Only borne of the Hydra, not of me.”

“The Hydra?” asked Tony.

“It rises,” Loki said, his gaze far away. “It’s body lies deep within, out of reach, it’s feelers rise. All around, in every direction - that is why your chain did not work. Peter was in its arms.”

Tony suppressed a shudder and glanced at Peter. He was dealing with it incredibly well, and Tony felt a swell of pride as he watched the boy lean forward and hold out his hand for a little gemstone or a trinket that Hela wanted to show him. He wasn’t surprised. Tony had been a prodigy himself, he wouldn’t have chosen any less when he took his own apprentice. But Peter… Peter was a special case for reasons well beyond ability and brains.

Loki’s hand rested on Tony’s shoulder as he stood, and then trailed slightly as he walked away. Tony bit his lip, then took a deep breath and followed. “How’re you feeling?” he asked, once they were out of earshot of the children.

Loki turned his head slightly and dipped it with a little smile. “I am well, Monk.”

Tony sighed and twisted his lips. “I’ll, uh…”

“You kissed me,” said Loki. He was facing away, running his talons along a row of murky glass jars.

“Ah,” said Tony. “Yeah.” He frowned. “I… should I apologise?”

“Would you like to?”

Fuck it, Tony thought. “Not really.”

Loki was in front of him so fast it pulled the breath right out of his lungs. One talon came up to rest lightly on his cheek, and Tony’s hands clenched into fists against the wall he was leaning on. “Did you forget what I am?” Loki asked softly.

Tony raised his gaze to meet Loki’s green, intense stare. But there was no threat in the words, more… a way out. An exit marked for Tony’s own good. Tony let the smile curl his lips slowly. He moved one hand from the wall behind him to rest on Loki’s waist, the soft feathers shifting under his palm as Loki’s muscles fluttered. “How could I?” Tony asked. “You’re incredible.”

Loki’s claws retracted, and the sharp talon turned into the cool fingertips, then his whole palm resting against Tony’s jaw. Tony’s eyes drifted shut and he turned his face into Loki’s hand. The moment felt like a butterfly resting on an open hand, suspended and magical.

He wondered, over the pounding of his heart, if Spectres kissed. If they got together the way humans did. He’d never heard of a Spectre couple - and there were certainly no Spectres who spent any more time with humans than they had to. So taking that final step closer to Loki, leaning up onto his tiptoes and pressing his lips against Loki’s felt like jumping off a cliff into a bottomless void.

Loki gasped into his mouth, his other arm wrapping tightly around Tony’s waist, hauling him closer. The light changed behind Tony’s closed eyelids, and when he blinked and ended the kiss, he saw that they were surrounded by a whirling cloud of Loki’s feathers, spinning in a black cloud around them, never touching them, and continuous with Loki’s cloak. Tony’s jaw dropped and he smiled in wonder, reaching out a hand to let them swirl through his fingertips, turning to dust and then back to feathers as they met his resistance. 

“You do not mind?” Loki asked, his voice low, mouth close to Tony’s ear. “That I am… this?”

“Mind?” Tony laughed. “It’s awesome!” He turned to look at Loki properly, linking his hands behind Loki’s neck. “I mean… I don’t know why you’d bother with me, I’m just--”

“Amazing,” said Loki fiercely. “Clever, and open, and you see magic when the world has become jaded to it all. I see you gaze in wonder at my power, and yet defeat me still! What makes you, Tony Stark?”

Tony smiled and pulled Loki closer to kiss him again, feeling the storm around them roar.


	6. Rescue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fifty three children wait in the bowels of the earth, waiting for a rescue they believe will never come...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is... the _possibility_ that this story has got out of hand? Maybe? But fuck it, I'm having so much fun! Unfortunately the Young Avengers aren't in for much more than this chapter, but I hope you enjoy their little cameo!

“We must find a puppet,” said Loki, and Tony’s breath was ripped from him again as they teleported, Spectre style into the middle of Wall Street. 

“Holy shit,” Peter gasped, staggering forwards. 

Tony hauled him back up. “Pretty damn cool, huh?” he grinned. Peter nodded, his eyes sparkling. 

Loki shook his head. “You two are the most… unusual of Monks.”

“Normal is boring,” said Tony, waving a hand. “Now, puppets - what are we looking for?”

Loki waved a hand and the bustling crowd around them went dark. The people continued to walk, unnoticing, but Tony could see right through them to a glow in their core, the world behind them black and featureless. 

“The Hydra reaches up, its tendrils burrowing into the core of those whose soul is rotting,” said Loki, his voice a deep rumble. “It feeds, and replaces, and leaves behind a puppet, walking and wielding power, and outwardly indistinguishable from the narcissistic, greedy scum it was before.”

Tony and Peter exchanged looks. “Well, we’re in the right place in Wall Street, I guess,” Peter shrugged.

Loki was silent, watching. Suddenly he pointed. “There,” he said, and pulled them through space fifty yards or so down the street. 

Tony coughed. “Bit of warning, please?”

“Do you see it?” Loki asked. He pointed towards a man in a suit, the same as every other besuited man on the street, pinstripes and briefcase and mobile phone up by his ear. But instead of the glow in his core, pulsing under the solar plexus, the man had a solid, dull silver tentacle.

The tip of the tentacle was buried in the man’s head, spreading throughout his brain. From there it sank through his body and down, down into the earth where it disappeared into the darkness. Tony cleared his throat. “Well. Yeah. That’s, uh… disgusting.”

“Is it killing him?” Peter asked, eyes wide as he watched the man pause on a street corner to snap into the phone.

“He is long dead,” Loki said. “He is but a puppet.”

“So… we can’t save him,” Peter said, and Tony wanted to hug the kid. At least he knew even if Tony himself became evil, Pete would still want to help him.

Yeah, better not encourage such levels of idealism, really.

“What are we going to do, then?” Tony asked.

“Follow him down,” said Loki, and rushed forwards, a swirl of ravens cawing as his spirit split into thousands of the birds.

“Shit,” Tony muttered, racing after him. Peter shot out a strand of his own Spectral spirit that wrapped itself around the wildly thrashing puppet. The man started to _melt_ , the tendril retracting into the earth and leaving the body behind, folding itself up on the floor like a rubber suit. 

Before Tony could retch, or react in any way, he felt strong arms snatching him up from the cloud of ravens, and the three of them rushed through the body, through the earth, following the retreating tentacle.

Tony forced his hysterical mind away from the fact that he’d just dived through a boneless body on the floor and was currently diving into the bowels of the earth after a Hydra. “I’m good under pressure, I’m good under pressure,” he muttered, gritting his teeth and clinging onto Loki.

They reached a horizontal tunnel at last, and the tentacle whipped away ahead of them as they touched down. Loki’s ravens coalesced back into his human form, Peter’s Spectre strand tugged back into his hand, and the three of them looked at each other, breathing hard. 

“You have been here before, Peter,” said Loki. “Can you tell the best direction?”

Peter looked slightly panicked, then frowned. “Yeah, actually. That way.” He pointed straight into a wall.

Tony’s eyebrows raised. “Good thing I brought blasting powder.”

Peter shook his head. “No, no, we can just walk through,” he said. “C’mon, I can hear them!”

Tony frowned and looked around, hearing nothing but silence. Loki shrugged. “I do not hear it either.”

Peter led them into the wall, pressing into the spongy loam which parted as he moved, and then closed again behind them. Tony shuddered. “Uh, this would be a bad time to tell you that I’m a bit claustrophobic, yeah?”

Loki turned to smirk at him, but he felt a long-fingered hand tuck into his own. He considered feeling insulted, but it felt too nice. He slipped his own fingers between Loki’s and grinned up at him. 

They walked in silence for time that Tony didn’t even bother trying to measure. ADHD always turned that into a bitch anyway, wasn’t much point when he couldn’t see clocks or the sun. He just followed Peter as he turned and pushed on, and when they pushed into a vast cavern, he blinked, like he’d forgotten that’s what space looked like.

Peter gasped and ran across the room. “Teddy, Kate - you guys OK?”

Tony and Loki followed him over, Tony casting a ball of magelight which he threw up into the air to cast a golden glow over the room full of… “Jesus Christ,” he muttered. “How many kids are stuck down here?”

“Fifty three,” said a skinny boy with huge eyes. “We count off every evening.”

Peter was bustling between the bundles of rags and slow-moving limbs, squeezing shoulders, pulling kids into a sitting position, touching faces. Tony reached down to the boy who’d spoken. “What’s your name, kid?”

“David,” he said, taking his hand and hauling himself up, but looking at Tony only out of the corner of his eye. 

“Can everyone walk? Does anyone need carrying out of here?”

David snorted. “Yeah, don’t give us false hope, man.”

“We got down here, we’re getting you all back up,” Tony said, still looking around and planning.

“The one-armed man’ll be back soon,” said a tough-looking girl, pushing herself to her feet. “You got no chance. Welcome to hell.”

“Then we shall need help,” Loki said thoughtfully. He tipped his head back and whistled, shrill enough that Tony ducked and clapped his hands over his ears. 

“What the hell, Lokes? You want to call the Hydra down on our ears?”

 

Loki smirked at him. A white cloud appeared behind his back, particles of light swirling around and coalescing into three distinct shapes. Tony sighed. “Hey triplets.”

Hela smiled, the ragged gash in her skin shifting over her face and leaving the grin on her eyes alone. Jormungandr, in human form, looked around at the room full of ragged children, then shifted into a massive dragon, making a couple of smaller kids scream. 

“Don’t worry, he’s a friend!” Peter yelled. “Uh, Mr Loki, do you think--”

“Climb onto Jormungandr’s back,” Loki said. “We will help you if you cannot, and he will fly you to your freedom.”

“This can’t be real,” said an auburn haired boy weakly, leaning on a big blond guy who wrapped his arms protectively around his shoulders. “This can’t… it’s a dream.” He pressed his face into the blond’s chest, exhausted.

“I told you I’d come back, Billy,” said Peter gently. He glanced up at blondie. “Teddy, can you get him up onto Jor?”

“Is this for real, Pete?” Teddy asked, frowning. “The one-armed man took you, we thought you’d be torn apart like… like all the others and then… now you’re back here?”

Peter nodded. “You know I said I’m an apprentice Monk? This is my master, Tony. He got Loki to help find me.”

“But that’s a Spectre,” said the tough girl. “Monks don’t work with Spectres.”

“America,” Teddy warned.

“Nah, Ted, we can’t trust these guys - we were all grabbed by a Spectre, we’ve been held here for weeks by one massive Spectre that seems to spread across the whole earth, I’m not going with another one. Out of the frying pan, into the fire?”

Fenrir bounded up in his wolf form, tongue lolling, then, in a swirl of power, switched back to his human form. “America!” he yelled, grabbing her in a hug. 

“Fenrir? You’re--”

“You’re here! We looked for you! Why did you go? I missed you! I told Loki and he said he’d look! We’re here to get you out!”

“You’re a Spectre?” America said, mouth open.

“Yup yup. Wolf form. Spectre. Want a ride? I can run real fast. Where’s Kate?”

“Uh, she’s there…” America pointed at a dark haired girl, who pushed through the group to her side. “You’re a _Spectre?”_

Tony looked around the room. Hela was hugging a group of smaller children, and Jormungandr was switching back to his human form to talk to a different group of teenagers. Peter grinned at America. “Can we rescue you now?”

She nodded, dazed. Fenrir scooped her up into an enthusiastic hug, and she laughed, patting his back before he shifted into a wolf form and raced off. “Shit, yeah, let’s do this. Shit. Teddy, we’re getting out of here!”

“Jor?” Peter yelled. The giant dragon-snake rematerialised, and this time, the kids were much faster at scrambling up onto his back. Tony helped Teddy lift Billy onto Jor’s back, steadying him until Teddy could wrap him up in his arms again.

Then there was a scream at the edge of the cavern, and a roaring snarl from Fenrir. Blood running cold, Tony raced over as fast as he could, Loki splitting into his ravens. At a doorway there stood a black-haired man, his long hair hanging over his face. His nose and mouth were obscured by a jawbone mask, and one arm shimmered, shifting and pulsing with Specral power. “Speed it up, kids,” Tony yelled, keeping his eyes fixed on the one-armed man.

For a moment the three of them stared at each other, the noise of fifty three children scrambling to climb onto Jor a panicked rustle behind Tony and Loki. Then the man leaped into action, hurling himself at Tony. Tony shifted, smashing a vial of flame at his feet. The Spectral arm shot out, siphoning up the flames with barely a glance, and the man spun, his flesh arm nearly connecting with Tony’s jaw. Tony raised a hand to block, the strength of the strike vibrating every bone, making him gasp. 

Loki split into ravens and flew at the man, trying to separate him from Tony, but the man kicked out, thumping into Tony’s lower back. Tony dropped to his knee, the adrenaline keeping him from crying out, and swung his arm, knocking the man’s leg out from under him. He fell onto his back, whipped his feet, and flipped himself upright, but Tony had at least managed to scramble backwards, out of the way.

With a hair-raising scream, Loki dived towards the man, every raven shrieking and coalescing around him. Tony pushed himself to his feet, heart pounding, watching in sickening horror as the ravens whirled around the man in a wild storm. Suddenly there was a rending, ripping noise and the ravens parted, all flying away in unison, looking down, calculating. There on the floor lay the broken man, his shimmering arm gone, his bare face contorted in pain and turned towards Tony.

“Holy shit,” Tony breathed. “It’s Bucky fucking Barnes.”

Loki’s ravens seemed to hang in the air, the world taking in a long breath before the scream, and then, delicate and elegant, dived back down to destroy the most famous missing Monk in history.

Tony raced forwards, screaming and waving his arms. “Loki, no! It’s Barnes, leave him, no!”

He bent over Barnes’ body, eyes squeezed shut in terror. The rattle of thousands of feathers and wings trying to change direction filled every sense, and he threw his arms up over his head even as he hunched over Barnes’ chest and face. There was a storm of buffeting wind, of beating wings, a brush of feathers, and nothing. Tony squeezed his eyes open.

“Tony,” Loki said, panting and standing over Tony with dark, angry eyes. “You are a fucking idiot.”

Tony burst out laughing, high and terrified. “Shit, I know, right?”

“What is the meaning of this?” Loki snapped.

Tony looked back down at the man beneath him. “When I was a kid, Barnes was this... legend. A Monk who went missing during the final battle of the great Monk-Spectre war, no trace of him whatsoever. Everyone thought he was vaporised, him and Captain America, but…” He breathed out hard. “I grew up with pictures of him and his team all over the house.” He shrugged. “My dad worked with them. Never let me hear the end of it, how I’d never be as good as Barnes, as any of the Howling.” He smirked up at Loki, cocky. “I got better.”

Loki raised an eyebrow and smiled back. “You did.” He bent down to lift Barnes, who groaned weakly. “His soul was entangled with a shard of the Hydra’s,” he said as he straightened.

“You mean he was a puppet?” Tony asked, eyes wide.

“Not at all,” Loki said. “More like… how Peter is now. Only the Hydra’s power was akin to an infection, at war with him. Mine is given gladly, and will work with Peter. It is his now.”

Tony looked down at Barnes, his breathing sharp and jerky. “What now?”

Loki jerked his head. “We return.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes. I haven't made a mistake about the Captain America and Steve Rogers thing. All will be explained ;) Only one chapter to gooooo so sad!


	7. Return

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki brings everyone back to his cavern, and Tony starts trying to heal Barnes... until they're interrupted.

Tony was getting used to travelling by Spectre teleportation. He only had to gulp air three or four times before he was able to take in the scene around him.

And what a scene it was. Loki’s cavern seemed larger, Tony thought as he looked around. Hela started dancing, shooting Spectral power at the roof so garlands of light hung themselves and cast a warm white glow. Jormungandr shifted into his human form as the last kid slipped off his back into Peter’s arms. “Injuries over here,” Jor called. “I can heal you.”

Loki nodded to him, the pride clear in his eyes. He lay Barnes on a table that rose out of the ground at his gesture. “I think,” he said, cocking his head to look at Barnes’ face, contorted in pain. “That you should heal him. He has had too much Spectral interference.”

Tony nodded, and took a deep breath. “Healing’s not much my thing,” he admitted. 

Loki smiled softly, his bone mask turning to mist and floating away. “I have faith.”

Tony looked down to hide his smile, and cast a diagnostic spell over him. “OK, so he’s got a bunch of broken ribs, a - jeez, a skull fracture, bruised kidneys and a fuck-ton of scars.” He breathed deeply again and rubbed his hands together. 

“Can I help?” asked Hela from _right_ by his elbow. 

Tony startled so hard he nearly yelped. “Holy sh- uh, yeah, OK, kid.” He glanced at Loki. “You can’t use your magic, but you can fetch and carry, yeah?” She nodded, a wide grin spreading over her sweet little face. Really, the moving wounds weren’t that creepy, not when you knew what a cutie she was. 

Tony laid out herbs and stones from his pockets, chatting constantly to her to keep himself calm and on target, telling her all about the associations and powers of all the ingredients. “Oh, here’s a piece of gold, huh, forgot I had that. That’s for riches, obviously. Then linden root, for strength. And that’s pansy petals, they’re for premonition, but I don’t really like the way they feel, it’s not quite right, you know?” Hela smiled up at him and nodded. He grinned and patted her head. “Yeah, of course you know. Anyway, I’ll work out what to do with them some day, but we definitely don’t need them for this.” He took another deep breath. “Right, pass me the weeping moss, the willowbark and the bloodstone.”

She passed him two tupperware pots and a small earthenware jar and he set about mixing a pinch of this, a dash of that, following the tug in his fingers that took him to the next right thing.

“What about this?” she asked, holding out a slim root.

He spared her a quick glance, still mixing the reagents, golden sparks flying up as his mortar struck. “What about that?”

“Linden root,” she said. “You said it was good for strength and bones are the strong parts of a human, are they not? We do need to fix the bones, right?”

He blinked down at her, a slow grin spreading over his face. “Hey, Pete! You’ve got competition for apprentice duties!”

Peter grinned and used his Spectral powers to thunk Tony in the back of the head. Tony flipped him the bird and took the linden root. “I think this is just what we’ll need,” he said to Hela, who grinned so hard her eyes almost closed.

The linden root started hissing as soon as Tony crushed it, and white smoke poured from the mixture. Tony held it over Barnes’ face, blowing gently so the smoke coated him, clinging to his skin in certain places, sliding off him in others. He started moving slowly downwards, rationing the potion so it could cover his whole body.

The first warning that something was wrong was Loki suddenly going rigid and turning, his bone mask appearing and his feather cloak rising into fierce wings. And then the room was full of roaring, raging Spectre.

“Leave him alone!” the very air screamed. 

Tony dropped his mortar and pestle, hunching down and covering his ears, the terror vibrating in his very bones. He heard children all around him wailing in terror, but it was little Hela’s whimper that penetrated the fog of fear. 

He forced himself up to stand, heart pounding, hands shaking. A great eagle Spectre slashed at Loki, whose raven form shrieked and whirled around him. Feathers filled the air, and as one of the ravens screamed and fell, turning to dust, Tony felt the fury fill him. 

“Enough!” he roared, hurling a force bomb onto the floor between them. The powder inside the delicate glass vial blew everywhere, forcing all the Spectres nearby into their human form. Loki tumbled to the side, clutching at his arm, and Tony raced over to him, propping him up. “Are you OK?” he asked, voice low. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know what else to do, are you--”

“I’m fine,” he said, voice strained. “It was the best…” he trailed off, frowning. “Is that not…”

Tony turned and stared at the furious human-form Spectre, crouching on the floor. “Steve Rogers?” he gaped. 

“Give him back,” Rogers snarled, his face nothing like the wholesome, blue-eyed human form he showed to the public. “What are you doing to him? Give him back!”

Tony blinked, then looked at Romanov. “What?”

“Why have you got Barnes?” she asked, her eyes darting around the room, always gathering data.

“Uh, because we found him? He was… well, he was kinda acting as a jailer for these kids. We got into a fight, but Loki pulled all Hydra’s soul away from him so he’s got his own mind back, at least, and then I was using linden root which was Hela’s idea really, but it was a good one, and--”

“Stark,” Romanov said, frowning. “Shut up. Wait. You _found_ him?”

“Where was he?” Rogers demanded, standing straight, surging forwards, stopping as Loki rose, snarling in front of him. 

“Steve?” croaked a voice. Tony turned to see Barnes pushing himself up.

“Hey, no, wait, I haven’t finished healing you, I--” But Hela stood behind, waving, the mortar and pestle in her hands. “Huh,” Tony said. “That… that actually shouldn’t work without a Monk…”

“Bucky?” Rogers said, and Tony’s head whipped back, because that… he’d never heard Rogers sound so small, so lost. His mouth was hanging open, his entire soul _visibly_ pulled towards Barnes.

Barnes climbed, wincing, off the table, and Rogers rushed towards him, catching him as he stumbled, his hands cupping his face like he was looking at a religious relic. “You’re here,” Rogers said, barely audible. “You’re really here, Buck… everyone thought you were gone, but I wouldn’t… I couldn’t believe it, I would have felt it… the world… life wouldn’t have been worth living.”

“Wait,” said Tony, gaping. “You know Barnes? Like… the Howling Bucky Barnes?”

Rogers didn’t even look at him, but as Tony watched he shifted into another form, a muscular blonde man, vast shoulders and a blue and red suit. “You’re Captain America?” Tony squeaked. “You didn’t… but you’re a Spectre! Captain America was a Monk, he and Barnes, they were _The_ monks!”

“That’s what everyone had to believe,” Barnes said, his eyes still fixed on Rogers, his hand clinging to Rogers’ hip. “There was a war on, people wouldn’t have accepted a Spectre in their ranks.”

“The world’s different now, Buck,” Rogers said, stroking Barnes’ hair back from his face. “Spectres, Monks and baseline humans, we all live and work together… there’s still a bit of bad blood with the Monks but… we can…” he gulped. “We can be together, if you… if you still--”

“Oh god, Steve,” Barnes said, pressing closer, tears leaking from his eyes as they fluttered shut. “I was trapped in my own head, watching my body do all these terrible things, I never dreamed… I never even hoped I’d find you again.” He whimpered and pulled back. “I’ve done terrible things, Steve, I’ve… you won’t want me, not like--”

But Rogers held his face in both hands and kissed him. Barnes melted into the kiss, pressing closer, wrapping his arm tightly around Rogers’ back and clenching his fingers into the fabric over his back.

“Well,” said a voice in Tony’s ear, and he looked up to see Loki smiling down at him. “Perhaps we are not quite so strange. A Monk and a Spectre together?”

Tony looked around at the abandoned human children being comforted by the young Spectres. At the Spectre child poking around Tony’s Monk equipment. At the young Monk, his soul fused with that of a Spectre, learning the Spectral healing methods, and teaching some Monk methods to anyone who’d listen. He looked at the Spectre standing at his own shoulder and leaned up to kiss him. 

“What about the Hydra?” he asked, leaning against Loki’s chest as the kiss broke.

Loki wrapped his arms around his back. “You cannot kill it,” he said. “It is a mindless decomposer, as long as there are those who allow their souls to die in their own living bodies, it will thrive. There is still work to do, though. The Hydra would not think to capture children, to fuse humans with its own soul.”

“Yeah, honestly that sounds a human thing to do,” Tony admitted. “Trying to get Spectral powers without the work that goes into becoming a Monk.”

“There have always been those who worship power, in all its forms,” Loki nodded.

Tony sighed and leaned into Loki, watching Barnes and Rogers reunite, Romanoff joining Jormungandr and Peter, Teddy hover by Billy as he stretched his healed ills. “We’ll fight, then,” Tony said. “But for now, we’ve got a lot of kids to look after.”

Loki looked at him, his head cocked to one side. Tony rolled his eyes. “Oh, don’t look like that. It’s your fault. You called them _my_ children. ‘What becomes of the children, Monk?’” he said, mimicking Loki’s voice.

Loki grinned, bent down and kissed him again. Tony smiled into the kiss, and felt his heart glow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OMG! It's done! Part of me feels like I should write way more about Steve and Bucky and the Howling but... uh, if I did that I'd end up making it into an original story anyway and then it would have to wait until I've finished off the other 8 novels on the to-do list so... I hope this makes sense! I had an absolute blast of a time writing this, and I so much appreciate all your kind comments about this mad world that sort of turned up in my mind and went 'just write about us, make it weird and not fully explained, they'll go with it!' Thank you for going with it, you just proved Spectre!Loki correct lol!

**Author's Note:**

> I also write a sort-of-regular blog about my original novels on [Wordpress](https://lynhemphillauthor.wordpress.com/), and I talk all sorts of bollocks on Tumblr as [Gold-From-Straw](https://gold-from-straw.tumblr.com/) too! Come say hi if you like!


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